unless he was traveling for over 2 days, i dont think it was NH3 poisoning. honestly, bettas are particularly resilient to NH3 and NO2, likely in part due to having really sh*tty gills (which is where these toxins enter the fish).
and they tend to be hardy with acclimation too.
if he died a week later, i would bet parasites. fish can live with parasites for years without any symptoms, but after a major stressor (like shipping) they cant handle the parasite load anymore and die.
what i do when i ship bettas, is put a drop of Prime in the bag. it binds out NH3 for 24-48 hours, so usually there is 0 NH3 when the fish arrives. i will also add a drop upon first opening a bag of a fish shipped to me, to neutralize any NH3 that may have accumulated so the poisoning stops instantly, and not 40 min later when i finish acclimating.

Oh? Maybe that is why he was so small compared to his spawn sisters?!? Parasites.

unless he was traveling for over 2 days, i dont think it was NH3 poisoning. honestly, bettas are particularly resilient to NH3 and NO2, likely in part due to having really sh*tty gills (which is where these toxins enter the fish).
and they tend to be hardy with acclimation too.
if he died a week later, i would bet parasites. fish can live with parasites for years without any symptoms, but after a major stressor (like shipping) they cant handle the parasite load anymore and die.
what i do when i ship bettas, is put a drop of Prime in the bag. it binds out NH3 for 24-48 hours, so usually there is 0 NH3 when the fish arrives. i will also add a drop upon first opening a bag of a fish shipped to me, to neutralize any NH3 that may have accumulated so the poisoning stops instantly, and not 40 min later when i finish acclimating.

He had all the classic signs -- gasping, red streaks, darting about, paleness etc -- I did put Prime in, but after I cut the bag open,so maybe it was too late?

The red streaks weren't until much much later.

My pH is 7.5 -8.0 and I stupidly didn't check his water parameters when I opened his bag, I was just concerned w getting him some Prime and cleaner water.

Holy Batman, you have been up to some serious work. Its great that you revamped the table of contents. You should treat yourself to a vacation to Hawaii...... and while you are here you might as well do a seminar on planted tanks

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the The Planted Tank Forum forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

OR

Log-in

User Name

Password

Remember Me?

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.